In many large cities in America, areas now known as neighborhoods were once small independent towns that were eventually gobbled up by the encroaching urban morass. Cities have expanded at a fantastic rate over the last two centuries. In the East and Midwest, growing cities often incorporate surrounding settlements. In the West, small towns often grew to the point of fusing with each other, leaving them still independent politically, but completely integrated in almost every other way. And this is one of the ways in which some American communities have disappeared over time: they were simply swallowed up by population growth and expansion, merging into large urban, and eventually suburban areas that defy the familiarity needed to create and maintain the binding relationships that define historic communities.
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts is one such place. Founded by Puritan farmers in 1630, it was situated along the Stoney Brook, just down the road from the small, nearby town of Boston. Affiliated with the town of Roxbury, Jamaica Plain was a small rural community. But over the succeeding decades, development and growth led to changes. By 1850, only 10% of families still farmed, and a substantial portion of the population were immigrants, though the community still boasted a manageable population of 2,700. But just 25 years later its population had more than tripled and Jamaica Plain had been annexed by Boston. As the 20th century dawned, what was once a small agricultural community had evolved into one of many neighborhoods in a major metropolis. Increasingly it was a place like any other major city neighborhood: a place where people lived, but where the binding relationships that define a community were ever more tattered or severed altogether.
Then in 2004, a resident named Joseph Porcelli started organizing his neighbors to raise awareness and deter crime happening in the neighborhood. What began as an effort to increase neighborhood safety soon blossomed into a full fledged effort to weave together disconnected neighbors by helping them discover what they had in common so they can do 
things with and for each other in person. The organization Neighbors for Neighbors is avowedly “community-driven” and uses both the internet and face-to-face organizing to build the kinds of relationships that a community depends on. Many of the historical forces that led to the disintegration of American communities are still present, so rebuilding communities is a very tall order. But Neighbors for Neighbors is working toward that goal. The NfN appoints Block Mayors that work at the very local level, organizes community building events, and members communicate regularly about many issues of local concerns on a social network that serves as the in-between when they are not meeting in person. And the movement is spreading, in 2009 they expanded the program to all 18 of Boston’s neighborhoods.
Historic communities had their virtues and their vices, and not all Americans are eager to redevelop that type of living, even in a modern sense. But many are. The challenge is to overcome the obstacles that led to community disintegration by finding a way to adapt, by creating modern communities that can thrive in 21st century America. It’s not easy, but organizations like Neighbors for Neighbors, founded after the slow transformation of Jamaica Plain from small rural community to dense urban neighborhood, are looking for new approaches to achieve that goal.